Host

  A mage-conjure whispered across my skin and spawn stragglers fell smoking to the street. Other spawn shrieked and slowed, stumbling. I had to learn that conjure. Above me, in the wake of the truck, I heard a whir. In the night sky were two beasts with dozens of wings, dragonets, darting down. If it had been safe to curse, I would have let out a string of them. Instead, I pulled an amulet I had created just for such creatures and tore after them. I had to be close for the incantation stored in the amulets to work. Real close.

  In the middle of the street, the succubus queen was on one knee, blackened and scored, so badly wounded it no longer screamed, but fought for life. If it fell, the fighters would behead it.

  The orthodox had joined the fight, their black clothing making them hard to spot. They were fearless warriors, believing that their place beside the Most High was assured if they fell fighting his enemies. The sound of their prayers resonated in a continuous burr of scripture as they called on God the Victorious to grant them success. In mage-sight, they gleamed as I raced past, their faith and zealotry adding energy to bland human flesh. Or maybe, as they believed, it was the spirit of God the Victorious filling them with his holy presence. I didn’t know. Soulless beings like me had no way to confirm or deny the claims of the religious. But part of me wanted them to be right, wanted the Most High to have a continued interest in humanity and the world all claimed he’d created.

  One man looked up as the dragonets whirred overhead and fired a dozen shots into the air. The dragonets soared in the night sky and seemed to home in on one form in the melee below. They dropped into the midst of the skirmish, ten feet long and sinuous, exoskeletons bristling with dagger-sharp spines and barbs, legs with multiple joints, spikes at each bend.

  At the sight, battle-lust pulsed into my bloodstream, and I swung both blades in perfect arcs, powerful strikes that took off spawn limbs and heads with ease as I raced toward the fight, cutting my way through the Minor Darkness in mindless bloodlust. With the walking horse, I dispatched three spawn that had hemmed two men into a doorway, one severely wounded.

  I didn’t feel a moment’s shame at taking the spawn from behind. Fighting minions of Darkness required no honor. The spawn fell in a dozen pieces, my tanto singing in victory. I shouted my battle cry, “Jehovah sabaoth!” as spawn blood drenched the snow. The man still standing tipped his hat at me while cleaning a blade on his pant leg. He was an orthodox, his black suit ripped, torn, bloody. I recognized him but couldn’t place his name. I nodded back and stepped to the side, into the leaping cat form, blades in graceful arcs, ripping another group of spawn to pieces before they could regroup and fight me.

  Ahead, my two champards fought back-to-back against both dragonets. I didn’t have time to wonder why they fought alone, without the help of other townspeople. I gauged my incline on the run and leaped high, landing on a wide leg joint, slicing backhanded to sever the poisoned stinger of its descending tail. At the taste of dragonet blood, the tanto belled a paean of triumph and joy. Planting my feet in the angles where legs met body, I raced up the dragonet, slicing through legs and wings, temporarily disabling the appendages, but knowing the beast was able to regenerate with supernatural speed. I had to get to its head.

  Just as I climbed within striking distance, the dragonet reared straight up, roaring, throwing me back. My feet slipped. I bounced once on my backside, spun, and slid toward the ground. I caught myself one-handed in the notch of a missing leg, swaying wide and back, wedging both feet into crevices in the steel-hard shell.

  The dragonet’s head rotated on overlapping ridges and it snapped at me, fangs flashing. Six inches of ichor-coated teeth grazed my arm. It drew away, mouth opening for another strike. I whirled the tanto and thrust up, into its open mouth and through its palate, into its brain—if it had a brain—a kill strike.

  The tanto blazed cerulean blue and an electric pulse surged up my arm as I twisted the blade and ripped it free. A gush of blood followed, drenching up my arm, eating away the pajama sleeve, searing my skin, splashing from the battle cloak. With a simple flick of my wrist, I tossed a stone into its maw. The shard of amethyst bounced and fell down its throat.

  “Audric!” I shouted. I didn’t look, I simply jumped, trusting the big man to catch me if he could. If he was occupied, if he missed, landing on the hard street was still a better choice than staying up here. An arm snatched me out of the air and set me down in a dancer’s stance.

  “Took you long enough!” Audric shouted at me. The joy of battle lit his eyes in a mad gleam and he laughed. Rupert ripped the air with his master’s blade, holding off the other dragonet, detaching several many-jointed legs. Above me, the dragonet I had ridden coiled into an S to strike.

  The effect of the amethyst wasn’t as spectacular as the anticonjure amulet, but it worked just as well. Lavender light blazed up its throat and burst from every joint. The dragonet squealed like a hog on a spike and fell to a writhing heap on the ice.

  “One down,” I said, meeting Audric’s fierce glare with battle glee of my own.

  He raised his head and shouted his battle cry, “Raziel! By blood and fire!” He stooped, making a staircase out of his body. It was a move we hadn’t practiced, but I remembered it from savage-chi lessons as a child. I pulled a second amethyst and ran at him. Placed a foot on his calf, a foot on his thigh, his back, his shoulder, racing up his body. He thrust straight up, throwing me into the air, the move created to scale the walls of a fortified compound. He timed it perfectly, and I plunged the tanto down at the remaining dragonet, directly into one of its six eyes. The same pulse of the Flame-enhanced blade prickled up the tanto and through my blood.

  The dragonet howled, its hinged jaw open to the moon. I threw the crystal of amethyst down its maw and wrenched my body, removing the blade. Eye fluid splattered me as I dropped. Again Audric caught me, this time like a baby falling from a bough, a bloody lullaby of war.

  Lavender light ripped through the beast. It fell atop the body of the first, whipping back and forth. Shouting my battle cry, I whirled to the succubus, but it was down, a dozen humans hacking into it, working at its scaled throat with swords and hoes and kitchen knives. It was bleeding out on the street. It looked like we were winning. I should have stifled the thought unborn. Murphy’s Law kicked in.

  In arrowhead formation, dragonets overflew the town. There were at least six, and these babies were furred, with large leathery wings and lobster claws that looked as if they were formed of demon-iron. Two elders in brown robes fell to their knees at the sight, praying aloud, spiritual warfare. In mage-sight, I recognized the Elders Waldroup praying back-to-back, their bodies glowing with the bright light of their faith, blades in both hands.

  Audric, Rupert, and I spread into a triangle to cover as much of the street as we could. Eli raced to join us. “You see ’em? These things just keep getting uglier. How many are there?” I shook my head. I didn’t know.

  Jasper, one of the town’s youngest elders, appeared out of the night. He wore wool pants, boots, and a coat, with pajama bottoms peeking out the pants’ legs. His bare chest was puckered with cold and he was heaving for breath, his face drawn and white except for the blood frozen or dried in his hair. He’d taken a nasty blow. His desperate black eyes met mine.

  “Call mage in dire,” he said. “You have to.”

  “My mistrend has considered and rejected the call,” Audric said, his face implacable. “Last time thirty-seven died from the raised sword of judgment. What if she can’t get the holy one to sheathe the weapon? The whole town could die. It has happened before.”

  When seraphs are called, they fight evil to a standstill. But after the fight, the naked swords sometimes take on a different function, the role of swords of judgment, and humans die as punishment for their sins. It was why I hadn’t called for help.

  Ignoring Audric in his position of my legal spokesperson, Jasper again spoke directly to me. “They’ve disabled the town’s satellite terminus and cut the phone lines.
They set off avalanches that blocked the roads and trails to the east and west and both sides of the Toe,” he said, speaking of the Toe River, which bisected the town. “We have no way to call for help. No way to get out. It looks like this time they mean to destroy the town.”

  As if to emphasize his words, a wood building in the middle of the block between Upper and Lower Streets fell with a thunderous roar, sparks shooting into the sky.

  Chapter 5

  Over the sulfur and brimstone stench of dying succubus and hacked-to-death dragonets and spawn, over the odor of burning wood, I smelled caramel and brown sugar and felt my body react to the pull of kylen. The low-level mage-heat I lived with day and night flamed high and I turned in a circle, skimming for Thadd.

  “Thorn.” Eli grabbed my elbow. I shook him away.

  From out of the shadows, I heard a hiss of indrawn breath. Even through the protection of the amulet he had brought me, I felt Cheran’s body clench. He too smelled kylen. His heat was instantaneous, and if Thadd didn’t ease back into the shadows and away from us, Cheran’s mating instinct would intensify, driving him into near madness until he found someone to satisfy his lust. I was fighting, my blood flooded with endorphins that cooled ardor, and I’d had better practice at resisting the mating urge brought on by seraphs and kylen, but the other mage clearly had not. Not actively part of the melee, surrounded by the lure-scent of succubus, his visa and primes weren’t keeping the uncontrollable sexual arousal of mage-heat at bay.

  With mage-sight, I now saw the other mage, breathing too hard, too fast, a blur of warmth and need, the high temperature of passion overriding his glamour as mage-heat took over—the animal rut that came over mages and seraphs in close company. If someone wasn’t willing, Cheran would attack and mate by force. The town fathers would flay him alive for rape—and he would deserve it, even if sexual violence didn’t bring seraphic judgment down on the town.

  I spotted Thadd hunched over in shadow. In mage-sight, he blazed with kylen light, his long coat clutched closed in one fist, pale feathers peeking from the back. Had he removed the conjured ring that kept his kylen attributes in check? Either that or something had happened that allowed me to see his energies as they really were.

  Toes touching the outstretched claw of a hand, he bent forward, his fingers tracing the length of the succubus’s scaled forearm. The dying beast twitched, claw scraping on the ice. Stepping closer, Thadd caressed its armored chest as if it were a woman’s perfect breast.

  The queen had been built from mage and Stanhope genetic material, and enhanced with the stolen essence of Barak, the captured Watcher I had freed. The succubus scent was tantalizing to human males, to seraphs, and to kylen, who were the result of matings between mage, seraph, and later, humans. Cheriour, the Angel of Punishment who’d left his sigil on the roadway, once went into violent sexual arousal at the scent.

  If I called mage in dire and a seraph answered my call, would it go into heat rather than to war? Had that been part of the Darkness’s plan all along? My own heat was growing, a warm pulsation low in my belly. Battle dire was supposed to stop mage-heat. Something was very wrong. What should I do?

  Eli whirled me around and shook me. My teeth clacked together with the force. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I lifted a hand, traced the length of his jaw with my knuckles, my longsword trailing behind the caress. His mouth opened in surprise and I leaned against him. It was hard to find words but the visa pulsed once and my mind cleared enough to say, “The dragonets and the succubus were made with Mole Man’s blood, which confuses the Host. The succubus was created to make seraphs go into heat. Dangerous, deadly heat. It’s already begun. Don’t you feel it?” I pressed my body against his.

  His eyes widened but he didn’t pull away. “There’re no seraphs here,” he said.

  I breathed in, smelling kylen, and wrapped my arms around Eli, my blades clinking together at his back. His body was warm, sweat-drenched, and I melded mine around him, breathing in his scent, musky with battle. “It wants me to mate. It wants me to call mage in dire. The smell of succubus and mage will make answering seraphs go into a mating fury. I don’t know what would happen or how bad it could get. I—”

  The ground shook beneath us, and Eli spread his feet for balance. The itchy feeling I had been suppressing all week intensified, enticing me from the hypnotic heat. Something was coming. Something big. The shaking of the ground increased. The visa pulsed again and I shook myself, trying to think, to reason. Earthquake.

  Jasper, his face tight with fear and revulsion at the way I was grinding myself into Eli, seized a porch column and held on. Thadd looked up from the queen’s carcass and licked his lips. My heat-rating went from battle-controlled to orgy-hot. I unwound from Eli and stepped toward Thadd. From my left, Cheran appeared. He was peeling out of the velvet cloak, the jacket and shirt beneath falling to the ground. I dropped the tanto and the longsword and pulled at the fastenings of my cloak. I could have a mage and kylen at once. I could—

  Eli slapped my face so hard my head whipped back. Thadd watched, his eyes hot with desire. The ground shook, knocking me flat. Eli crouched over me, supporting himself on his arms. His body smelled of human pheromones, blood, and that strange form of lust soldiers experience during combat. I slid a hand into his jeans, grasping him with tight fingers. He sucked in a startled breath. From Cheran, I heard an excited growl and I laughed. A human, a mage, and a kylen. I could have all three. “Yessss,” I hissed. “All three. Now.”

  “Much as I like having your hand in my britches, lady, this ain’t exactly the time or the place,” Eli said, squirming away. “What’s got into you? Three what?” Danger forgotten, I gripped his shoulders and arched up into him, sweeping the streets for Thadd and Cheran.

  In a blur of speed, Audric raced from the dark and barreled into Thadd. They bowled away, into the shadows. My head cleared. I jerked my hand free of Eli’s jeans and shook my head. “Seraph st—” I stopped myself, feeling a flush cover me in a different kind of heat as embarrassment swept through me.

  Eli, who had my wrist in his hand and a probing but interested look on his face, dropped his grip, stood, and stepped back. The ground was still shaking, a low, slow rumble as if the earth was purring. Or growling.

  “Thorn?” Rupert asked from nearby. His voice grew formal. “Mistrend. What’s that?”

  I snapped my mouth closed and followed his pointing finger. The streetlights had burned out nearly a century ago, and the smoke-filled street, lit only by the flickering light of multiple fires, had darkened. A wash of gray filled in the already dark spaces between snatches of light.

  “Something evil this way comes,” a voice out of the night said, as if quoting.

  “A big powerful evil,” a second voice said.

  “Yeah. A big, honking, evil mofo,” Eli said. He pulled me to my feet. Above us was a cloud of Darkness.

  I looked toward the Trine, its peaks lost in the night. Someone had asked how the succubus got to town with the hellhole closed. “The Dragon trapped between planes of reality is using the earthquake, or generating the earthquake, to get free. Its minions burrowed new openings and came looking for human deaths to provide the energy needed for its release.”

  “This little war here,” Eli said, understanding. “The Dragon was using it, siphoning off our energies to power the earthquake. Getting you and a Stanhope, while important, were secondary to the first part of the plan.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That feels right.”

  Dragonets whipped through the cloud, writhing in pleasure, brushing against one another in sensuous abandon. Whatever dragonets liked couldn’t be good for the rest of us. It wasn’t easy, but I pushed away the residual heat, picked up my weapons, and stepped into the cat.

  Near me, Cheran was fastening his clothes. “Powers and high-level Principalities of Darkness once could assume any form they wished, including the form of a cloud,” he said, his voice sounding dazed. “They had full s
eraphic gifts. But God the Victorious stripped them of most such abilities at the Fall. Some can still assume one shape that’s more than a glamour, but not a true transmogrification, like the succubus queen.” He indicated the cloud with a jut of his head. “That looks like true transmogrification, a true seraphic gift.”

  The cloud rolled low, taking with it the little bit of light that came from windows, doors, and fires. I took a tentative breath. It smelled of dying lilies.

  “What makes a Darkness with seraphic gifts so special?” Rupert asked, his voice thick.

  “Something happened in the otherness,” I said, remembering the sensation of being beneath the ground, trapped, fighting for my life and the lives of others. My scars blazed with white light and remembered pain as the cloud descended over us.

  “What’s an otherness?” Rupert asked. He rubbed his face, and then stared at his hand, which trembled with exhaustion.

  “I think it’s the same thing as the heavens. Or part of the heavens,” I said. “I think this means that Darkness found a victory there and gained back a foothold.”

  “Enough to give it power to transmogrify?” Eli asked. “If so, it’s got honking big mojo.”

  “Whatever it is,” Rupert said, “I think it’s poisonous.” He fell forward, landing face-first on the hard ice. My heart wrenched and I stepped over him, shielding him as I turned in a slow circle, watching. The cloud of Darkness rolled up the street like a wave. Men and women fell as if poleaxed, all except Eli, Cheran, and the EIH, who pulled gas masks over their faces. I saw Eli hand a spare mask to Lucas.